Guild Wars 2

Before anyone says anything, yes, this is similar to my last post. However, this post is going to be a lot more specific this time around. I’m posting this here because I’m focusing on build variety for PvP (with a side of WvW). Also, we see more Dev presence here than in class forums.

Warrior has always been a class that has a lot of cool potential builds, but more often than not you’ll end up back on a build that uses double Endure Pain. In this post I’m going to focus on what I think needs to be changed/adjusted in order to make different kinds of builds viable.

Reviving Hambow: This one is the simplest change to make. Merciless Hammer being a GM trait means it directly competes with Burst Mastery. This means that the synergy between using a full Combustive Shot and swapping to Hammer to use a 1-2 bar Earthshaker is much more clunky to time. The Might that you give to your team fighting on point and the AoE CC is what makes the weapon set good.

Moving Merciless Hammer to Master tier and buffing Inspiring Battle Standard and making it a GM would hopefully make Hambow viable (good synergy with Body Blow too) in addition to opening another build option…

Shoutbow/Support: While Shoutbow was a very easy to play and boring build for most, it was undeniably a good build. With all the other changes with the Specialization, especially with all the increased damage, nerfing the build to the extent they did was overkill. Shouts need to be brought back to around where they used to be, hopefully that will make them still slightly weaker than before, but still strong.

A buff/move of Inspiring Battle Standard would allow for a 2 (3 with To The Limit!) and a Banner. To make it viable I think Inspiring Battle Standard needs its CD reduction back, and have it increase the radius of the Banners. In a perfect world I’d like to see the ability to wear Banners on your back and pressing the skill again lets you wield it like you currently do, basically like a support-focused version of Engi kits. If not though, the first 2 buffs are more than enough to maybe make it worthwhile for a support build.

The Physical Warrior: The problem with Physical skills has always been the lack of utility they provide. It’s also very easy to avoid/mitigate the skills as well. Fixing this is tricky.

One possibility it making Physical skills Evade when traited. This helps skills like Bull’s Charge and especially Stomp. Also, Mending should be made a Physical skill.

I think Stomp could also do with being a ground targeted leap (if it could somehow work like Blink/Lightning Flash only with the War jumping would be amazing) because currently if you see the War activate it you can just walk back and be safe.

I don’t expect 3 Physical Skills War to be a thing, but being able to slot 2 and not be by default worse than a double EP war would be great.

Condi War: This one is really tricky. There’s a ton of removal now and the only reason Burn builds are working is because they only have to tic a few times for it to be damaging. Warrior condi is generally bleed based and needs a high number of stacks to be damaging or to tic for a while.

One trait that seems cool but is currently lackluster is Powerful Synergy. Maybe instead of just doubling the duration, it should double the effectiveness as well. That means 2 stacks of burning and Might. The burn wouldn’t be as good as Guard or Ele, but it would at least help.

Honestly, I think pure condi on a War isn’t going to be a good choice. That being said, a hybrid using Carrion, Rampager’s, or Cele could work. It would be nice to get a hybrid set that is more focused than Cele but still has some defensive stats like Marauder.

I would like to see every class have more build variety, but other classes have more complex problems. Most of Warrior’s problems come down to a trait or too.

I almost forgot something!

The Rifle: Oh Rifle, it’s so close to being good, but isn’t. There’s a couple issues with it:

• The Auto Attack is weak. It wasn’t that good when it had bleed on it, but it’s better than it is now. Just upping the damage would be boring, so maybe giving the AA vulnerability? That would give it synergy with GS and its own Brutal shot. Or, bring back the bleed as it would also synergize with Body Blow because of the bellow idea.

• Aimed Shot seems very weak and just…boring. As some of you know, I love interrupt focused builds. making Aimed shot a Daze would give Rifle a light CC role and more synergy with Body Blow and Distracting Strikes. If this happened, bringing back the bleed might actually be a good idea as well. I could see a hybrid Rifle + Sword build being a possibility.

• Crack shot is in a poor spot. Sadly, nothing that competes with Warrior’s Sprint has much of a chance to be taken. If rifle gets bleed back on its AA, then it could go back to a minor Arms trait. Maybe move Berserker’s Fury? If the Devs were to go the pure power route though, there’s not much to be done. You CAN do both without Crack Shot and without Warriors Sprint IF you focus on the ranged part of the build.

Current rifle is actually capable of beating certain builds fairly easily, but its weaknesses keep it from being more than an occasional duel weapon. As much as the hybrid concept seems decent, I think Bow already covers that role and many of us would rather it just be a pure power weapon.

don’t forget to bring an viable alternative to peak performance into strenght adept tier. and buff some defenses, so we don’t need to use double endure pain.

I actually like how rifle is on warrior. My biggest inspiration was getting killed by them time to time and going to spectate to see how they funded such a build and to my surprise, it is quite good.

The auto attack most certainly is not weak, and it isn’t meant for heavy damage anyways. Put on the arms trait line for the vuln on crit and that alone guarantees extra adrenaline gain. Aimed shot helps keep them away, volley is where your real damage comes in since if you pick rifle, you have crack shot which makes that 5-7k every 8 seconds, brutal shot doesn’t need anything it already applies 8 kitten stacks of vulnerability, and rifle butt is flat out awesome since it is so hard to miss with it and it cleaves. As for landing kill shot, well for being the highest single hitting skill in the game it is fine, there are ways to ensure it lands anyways.

As for the rest of the post, I really wish Heightened Focus never saw the light of day. That trait is a huge cripple for warrior build diversity, pretty much everyone flocks to some sort of cc followed by GS and this trait. They really should up the ICD on it to a reasonable amount like 30 seconds.

UBcktieDL.5318:

don’t forget to bring an viable alternative to peak performance into strenght adept tier. and buff some defenses, so we don’t need to use double endure pain.

Yah, I was thinking about moving Crack Shot to the Adept Strength line…but I don’t think ANet wants 3 weapon traits in one line. Also, in a Rifle build I might want some Physical skills which give me evade/mobility so that I could maybe skip the Defense line. Restorative Strength is such a strange change they made, even if Mending was buffed you wouldn’t take it and all our other heals have too long of a CD to use it effectively. I feel like we could do with another Adrenaline gain focused trait there.

Maybe a new trait where interrupts grant Might and Adrenaline? That would synergize with some builds. Basically a Warrior version of Chaotic/ Bountiful Interruptions. It would also allow even power builds to run Body Blow/Distracting Strikes and still gain plenty of damage from the conditions. It could make Hambow a lot more skillful.

NinjaEd.3946:

I actually like how rifle is on warrior. My biggest inspiration was getting killed by them time to time and going to spectate to see how they funded such a build and to my surprise, it is quite good.

The auto attack most certainly is not weak, and it isn’t meant for heavy damage anyways. Put on the arms trait line for the vuln on crit and that alone guarantees extra adrenaline gain. Aimed shot helps keep them away, volley is where your real damage comes in since if you pick rifle, you have crack shot which makes that 5-7k every 8 seconds, brutal shot doesn’t need anything it already applies 8 kitten stacks of vulnerability, and rifle butt is flat out awesome since it is so hard to miss with it and it cleaves. As for landing kill shot, well for being the highest single hitting skill in the game it is fine, there are ways to ensure it lands anyways.

As for the rest of the post, I really wish Heightened Focus never saw the light of day. That trait is a huge cripple for warrior build diversity, pretty much everyone flocks to some sort of cc followed by GS and this trait. They really should up the ICD on it to a reasonable amount like 30 seconds.

At it’s roots though it is still only really strong in some 1v1 situations where the Warrior can afford to repeatedly kite you. In a actual PvP match, kiting around isn’t that useful. It’s the same problem that LB Rangers have where, yes, they have strong off point power but are also fairly weak once you get in their face. My changes would make it so that you can use Aimed Shot to interrupt key skills while at close range so with that + Rifle Butt you would be able to use it on point more effectively. That synergy with the Arms line was why I suggested vuln on the AA, you could be procing a ton of vuln to make Volly even stronger.

As it stands, i would much rather have a GS/Hammer Warrior that is on point the whole fight and constantly CCing/cleaving than a Warrior sitting to the side trying to avoid anyone being near them.

Rifle- I want this to be buffed to 1500 range.

runeblade.7514:

Rifle- I want this to be buffed to 1500 range.

I think this would step on Ranger’s toes too much. Ranger LB is supposed to be the long range sniper weapon. Rifle seems more designed for mid-long range combat.

runeblade.7514:

Rifle- I want this to be buffed to 1500 range.

but muh mega pewpew phantasie arrowz nedz 2 shewtz da furrzest !!

nicknamenick.2437:

If you swap Merciless to master then pls swap Brawler back to GM…
I dont want to choose between Merciless and Brawler, not all builds need Burst mastery you know (only hambow really needs it.. so swap hammer to master, brawler to GM.. all happy)

While I see where you’re coming from, moving BR to GM would hurt more builds than it helps. Hambow doesn’t really need BR because of the use of LB + CI. You know the main reason we’re probably seeing GS/Hammer? It’s probably because Berserker’s power is still bugged with LB.

This move would make both Hambow and hopefully some sort of Shouts/Banner build both viable AND balanced. Yes, it might hurt GS/Hammer, but in exchange we get 2 builds and GS/Hammer will still be fine for WvW. In addition, the Meta GS/Hammer build doesn’t use MH atm anyways, it uses heightened Focus. BR in it’s current spot is also still good for Mace/Shield builds. We would be getting 2 viable builds, a unchanged build that was already decent, and a only slightly nerfed version of the current “meta.”

BurrTheKing.8571:

That synergy with the Arms line was why I suggested vuln on the AA, you could be procing a ton of vuln to make Volly even stronger.

As it stands, i would much rather have a GS/Hammer Warrior that is on point the whole fight and constantly CCing/cleaving than a Warrior sitting to the side trying to avoid anyone being near them.

You do realize the auto attack grants extra adrenaline gain when attacking a vulnerable foe right? That’s why I think its a wrong step not to mention rifle already has a skill built in that applies vulnerability for 100% uptime if you trait crack shot.

As for the daze, I think rifle warrior is more about blowing a target up than controlling the fight from a distance. Like you said, rifle isn’t like ranger lb its mid-long range so they can back out a little, grab a vantage point or w/e and pick someone out because honestly, who is going to be looking out for that sniper in the midst of a fight?

Most people rarely ever expect kill shot which makes it such an underestimated skill and rifle in general I think is very well made its just weapons like Gs and hammer overshadow it because they’re so kitten easy to use. Even longbow, idk if its the warrior community or just bad luck but all I ever see warrior’s do is 1-5 (in any order) and swap. It works too, for how short some of the cooldowns are and how potent they are like a 5k whirlwind attack, 6k rush, 4k fierce blow, etc.

Honestly some of these suggestions are just flat out bad. The simplest method of reviving Hambow is this.

Switch the banner master trait and Merciless Hammer.

Combine all the previous banner traits into it. The GM banner trait will now give regen, shorter cooldown, deal damage when you place a banner, and has increased radius

Done.

Rampage needs a slight nerf and then general warrior traiting needs a revision if not flat out buffing. A large margin of the new warrior traits are “almost good” but just don’t cut it in application.

Kamikazi.5380:

Honestly some of these suggestions are just flat out bad. The simplest method of reviving Hambow is this.

Switch the banner master trait and Merciless Hammer.

Combine all the previous banner traits into it. The GM banner trait will now give regen, shorter cooldown, deal damage when you place a banner, and has increased radius

Done.

Ummm…that’s literally what I post. By “buffing Inspiring Battle Standard” I meant bringing back all of the old stuff it used to give. That being said, making it possible to wear banners on your back would make them have use in WvW as well.